


make me a mercy

by rewire



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Complicated Relationships, Developing Relationship, Gen, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21968791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rewire/pseuds/rewire
Summary: Five moments Sawada Tsunayoshi makes it hard for Rokudo Mukuro to breathe, and one time he doesn’t.
Relationships: Chrome Dokuro & Rokudou Mukuro, Rokudou Mukuro & Sawada Tsunayoshi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 215
Collections: 2019 KHR Winter Remix Fest Round 2: Remixes





	make me a mercy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChaoticFairy (Amanda908565)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amanda908565/gifts).
  * Inspired by [First Impressions are Often Entirely Wrong](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21269366) by [ChaoticFairy (Amanda908565)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amanda908565/pseuds/ChaoticFairy). 



> Amanda!! I hope your winter holidays are going well, and that 2020 is everything that you could ask for <3 You deserve it and I hope you like this remix. 
> 
> This is a remix of First Impressions are Often Entirely Wrong, seen through Mukuro's eyes. I thought it would be really interesting to see the relationship that Mukuro and Tsuna could have here, especially with the really interesting change Amanda made to the Kokuyo arc!! Please read First Impressions are Often Entirely Wrong if you haven't already! Not only will you most likely need the context, but it's an amazing fic <3
> 
> This is an alternate universe, so I've modified some canon events, just in case you notice any differences.

1.

Mukuro can’t breathe.

There is a boot on his throat, he was flipped on his back two minutes ago, and the exertion of combat has knocked all the oxygen out of the room. 

None of that is what halts his lungs in their tracks though. None of that is anything compared to the weight of Sawada Tsunayoshi’s attention. Mukuro can almost feel himself catching ablaze beneath it; the other boy's gaze is living fire, and and beneath it, Mukuro is a mile underground, burning alive.

Mukuro tries to inhale, and Tsunayoshi’s boot presses down harder.  “If you ever try to take what’s mine again, I will not hesitate to finish what I started here today.” His voice comes out as a hiss, with all the intimacy of a snakebite. “I’m sorry that it came to this. I believe you would have been a wonderful ally. Perhaps you need to go back to time out.” 

_ Time out.  _

_ Ah _ . Mukuro thinks of the endless darkness of the Vindice’s care, the sound of chains and dripping water.  _ What a cruel way to phrase it, Sawada Tsunayoshi. _ What in particular did Tsunayoshi object to? The attempted possession, or Mukuro’s attack on Hibari Kyoya? Did it matter?

Mukuro’s lungs flop like fish on dry land, the last of his air bubbling out between his lips. Tsunayoshi doesn’t move. “I’m sure you’ll find a way to contact me once you’ve thought on your mistakes today, Mukuro Rokudo.” 

And then the Vindici come to collect their due, and Tsunayoshi finally releases him. His first gasp is smoke scraping across his throat, a wildfire in his lungs. As he is dragged away, Mukuro swears he can feel ash between his teeth.

And then there is nothing but water and chains and Mukuro spends a long, long time in the dark. 

2.

_ Mukuro-sama.  _

Chrome is calling him. With an effort of will, Mukuro pulls himself out of his body, moving to where she is. He spends more time out of his body than not these days. It should probably be worrying, except that Mukuro has spent his entire life that way. His body is simply another tool at his disposal, and not one he finds particularly pleasant most days.

With a bloom of mist flames, he appears in Chrome’s mindscape, and  _ oh  _ look at that. Sawada Tsunayoshi needs help. Mukuro is not particularly inclined to give it to him. 

But Sawada Tsunayoshi needing help also means that his dearest Chrome--he’s only known her for a month, but she’s half of his soul--needs help, and that is more than enough reason to interfere. 

When Sawada Iemitsu had approached Chrome with a half-ring in hand, Mukuro had considered, briefly, trying to infiltrate the Vongola’s next generation. It was a tempting thought. What better way to destroy the mafia than through their newest boy-heir? 

But the memory of Tsunayoshi’s boot was still heavy on his throat, and Mukuro is not a fool. There had been no mercy in his eyes back then, and the hand he had been extending in friendship was snatched away the instant Mukuro turned on him. 

Mukuro is not a fool, so when he manifests in a swirl of flames, he keeps one eye on Tsunayoshi and one on the Esper Mammon. Their illusions are good, but Mukuro is better. It won’t take all of his attention to take them down. 

Mukuro knows that Tsunayoshi could take them down just as quickly, simple as stepping on an insect.  _ So why wasn’t he disposing of this farce of a battle all together? _

At the back of his mind, Chrome shows him what he’s looking for. The touch of her will is delicate as a scalpel, and Mukuro can’t wait for the day when she surpasses him. The information she provided is laughable. Sawada Tsunayoshi is going to take over the mafia? How hypocritical. 

Then again, tyrants always are. Mukuro crushes Mammon with another illusion, tearing their sense of reality down around their ears, and turns back to see Tsunayoshi watching him.

His eyes are coals, heavy with intent. Mukuro’s breath stutters in his chest. All Tsunayoshi does is smile at him though, and it’s enough to break the spell. Mukuro whirls himself away, tucking his presence to a corner of Chrome’s mindscape. 

As she walks back to Tsunayoshi’s side, Chrome slides the two half-rings together. The click they make sounds like a handcuff locking into place.




The trip to the future is a nightmare. Mukuro is outside for the first time in months; there is a terrible joy in him at feeling the wind touch his face. Terrible, because he knows the minute they win (and they will win--with Sawada Tsunayoshi on their side, Mukuro has no doubt that they will emerge triumphant, no matter who Byakuran thinks he is) Mukuro will be sent back to the past. 

The past means chains and dark water and Mukuro doesn’t let himself be afraid, but there is something awful and lingering about being in Vendicare, like the water is leeching all of the warmth from his bones leaving him to inhabit a corpse. The only thing keeping him sane is Chrome, and the fact that he does not have to live in his body. If he didn’t have those two things, Mukuro doesn’t want to know what he’d become. 

Just before they return to the past, Tsunayoshi catches him by the shoulder. Mukuro fights the urge to flinch away. He refuses to be vulnerable in front of the boy (not man. not yet.) who held him down with no mercy, but the instinct is there.

“Are you ok, Mukuro?” And those words make him pause. Tsunayoshi’s hand on his shoulder is warm, not quite burning, but the potential is there. It makes him nervous, makes him unsteady. 

“What else could I be, Sawada Tsunayoshi?” With a swirl of mist flames, Mukuro prepares to retreat, cover his escape and walk to the back of the group. They’re simply waiting to be returned now, science beyond Mukuro’s understanding making the ground glow beneath their feet.

Tsunayoshi doesn’t answer his question, and he doesn’t let go of his shoulder. Mukuro’s ribs constrict like chains. He can’t breathe. “Thank you for helping us, Mukuro. I appreciate it.”

“It’s no problem.” Mukuro raises an eyebrow, “Was there anything else?”

Tsunayoshi frowns, like he’s considering a particularly difficult puzzle. Considering Mukuro last saw him make that expression before laying out their plan to kill Byakuran, it’s more than a little bit concerning. “When we get back to our time, I’m going to get you out of there.” 

Mukuro can’t quite hide his disbelief. He knows Tsunayoshi sees it, because his eyes narrow, and the hand on his shoulder warms a little, like a bed of coals. “I’m not kidding. You’re my guardian, Mukuro, and I won’t stand for your imprisonment any longer.”

Vendicare is an iron walled fortress, a prison so well guarded that even Byakuran himself didn’t attempt to take it by force. 

_ Then again,  _ a tiny voice whispers in his ear,  _ Tsunayoshi defeated Byakuran.  _ Mukuro shakes it off. Better to be a realist about these things. 

“I don’t know why you would bother, Sawada Tsunayoshi,” he says eventually. A couple of feet away, Mukuro can see Reborn watching them, eyes an eclipsed sun. Reborn is still wary, but Mukuro has seen that look before. He knows what devotion looks like. Mukuro continues, locking eyes with the Arcobaleno. “You have plenty of people loyal to your cause already.”

Tsunayoshi catches his glance, but doesn’t turn around. He probably already knows who Mukuro was looking at anyway. “Friends aren’t something that can be compared, Mukuro. You’ve thought over what you did in Kokuyo Land, I can tell, and you’ve been helping us. I’m going to get you out of there.”

Mukuro can’t  _ breathe. _

_ That isn’t the way the world works.  _

He doesn’t get the chance to explain this however, before the world lights up white and prismatic beneath his feet, reality peeling like an onion before his eyes. He shudders, jerking as if to free himself, and then he’s back in the darkness. 

The kiss of water on his skin is awful and confining, and he can’t move his arms. 

It doesn’t make a difference when things are this dark, but Mukuro closes his eyes anyway. Tsunayoshi isn’t here, but he still can’t breathe. He’s not entirely sure what that means.

4.

Daemon snarls at him, and Mukuro nearly laughs. 

He is moonlight-on-water, and this shadow of a man stole half of Mukuro’s heart away. There is really no contest. 

Except that there is. 

Daemon has centuries of grief on him, a mourning worn into the world so deep that it had gained a life of its own. Mukuro is one boy, not even a man, trying to tear him out via will, doing it all in a body that only exists because he  _ believes  _ it does _.  _

His back hits the wall, and Daemon laughs, mouth full of static, hand outstretched. “Not so brave now, are you, Rokudo Mukuro.”

Mukuro bares his teeth in return, and doesn’t stop himself from laughing this time. “Do you think you’re intimidating, Daemon Spade? Tied to the memory of someone long dead, hoping to prove yourself to something that is less than a ghost?”

Daemon's expression spasms with that same grief, and his face morphs. Chrome stares back at him, and Mukuro laughs even louder. “Do you think that will stop me, Spade?” A twitch of his fingers and the Vongola gear is once again in his hand. He knows his heart. That is not her. 

It doesn’t take much longer to banish him, and with the crack of a shearing glacier, Mukuro exorcises Spade away and fades to the back of Chrome’s mind again. Julie Kato staggers in the wake of the possession releasing, and Mukuro takes a moment to be viciously satisfied. It wasn’t his fault for being possessed, but that does not mean Mukuro will not blame him anyway.

The rest of the tenth generation is arriving, and Mukuro lets himself slip away before they arrive. Before Tsunayoshi arrives, more accurately. It is not cowardice if he admits it to himself.

Mukuro is almost back to his body, preoccupied with the thought of the Vongola-Simon conflict, when something stops him. It’s like running headfirst into a door, closed when it had always been open.

_ There is somebody else in his body.  _

The pieces fall into place, clarity like an open wound. Mukuro has been outsmarted. Daemon played him like a fool, and flush with overconfidence, Mukuro hadn’t thought to check for his defeat. The fact that he was out of Julie Katou’s body had been enough proof of his victory, and more the fool he.

With one last burst of will, Mukuro tries to find Chrome. At least he can shelter within her mindscape for a while. But when he tries to pull on the thread of connection between them, it passes through his grasp like fog, hazy with someone else’s flames. Daemon again. With nothing to anchor himself to, the edges of his spirit start to fray. 

Mukuro has been in worse situations, but always with a body that he could hold on to. As parts of him start to dissolve, he flinches, reaches for the closest thing he can touch. 

There is always one person Mukuro has had no trouble finding. Tsunayoshi a forest fire, a psychic presence a mile wide, and Mukuro runs into it head first, moth to the light. Near that blaze, he can’t think of finding Chrome--without the compass-draw of their bond, trying to locate her is like looking into the sun to find a firefly. 

Tsunayoshi’s mind is made of a distilled light so bright it burns; Mukuro is most definitely not welcome here. 

He doesn’t have the strength left to move though, so he sits at the edge of Tsunayoshi’s wildfire-thoughts, their bright edges searing until Mukuro feels charred. It’s probably ironic, dying trying to do the very thing Tsunayoshi originally struck him down for. With how weak Mukuro is right now, he wouldn’t be surprised if Tsunayoshi didn’t even notice him, just the ghost of a shadow at the edges of his mindscape. 

And then something miraculous happens. Like a cloud passing over the sun, Tsunayoshi’s thoughts briefly still.  _ Mukuro? Is that you? _

Words desert him, and Mukuro sends back  _ assent _ as strongly as he can. 

Tsunayoshi catches him, all of that light condensed into something nearly physical, enough for him to scoop up Mukuro’s soul in his palms. The same grip that had once thrown him out of his mindscape with force enough to leave psychic bruises, places him in Mukurowl carefully. 

Mukuro blinks open his eyes. He’s sitting on Chrome’s shoulder, talons curled over her school uniform. Tsunayoshi is looking at him. Mukuro’s breath catches in his too-small bird chest and Tsunayoshi says, “Explain now.”

What else can Mukuro do, but obey?

5.

It is not even a week after Daemon is defeated that Mukuro gets a visitor in Vendicare. 

He knows thanks to Chrome, that Tsunayoshi had found out about the Arcobaleno curse sometime during the future. Mukuro had only known about the curse in passing, but it wasn’t something he had ever planned on tangling with. Apparently Tsunayoshi had other ideas. 

Mukuro doesn’t need to open his eyes to know when Tsunayoshi steps into the room because he blazes, even behind closed eyelids. Mukuro does it anyway. 

Tsunayoshi is wearing a well fitted suit and eyes like banked coals. The curved glass of Mukuro's tank warps his face, smearing his features into a caricature of themselves.

Within the water, Mukuro can’t say anything, but Tsunayoshi still seems to see the question behind his eyes. 

“I’m here to get you out. I promised, didn’t I?”

_ And what will you ask of me then, Tsunayoshi? When I am free of this prison, but never to breathe on my own. _

As if he hears him, Tsunayoshi grins. Even through the glass, Mukuro can see its edges. “Help me destroy the Arcobaleno Curse and then we’ll see.”

Mukuro closes his eyes. Tsunayoshi has never pretended to be a good person, but Mukuro had almost expected an offer of freedom at the end of his sentence. He was a fool. What does it matter anyway? Mukuro will accept the facade of freedom, even if all it means is a longer leash.

He manages a nod, even with the bulky oxygen mask strapped to his face, and Tsunayoshi grins wider. “You won’t regret this, Mukuro.”

There’s nothing wrong with the tubes leading to his mask, but Mukuro feels his lungs constricting anyway. “Won’t regret this?” He already did.

+1.

The forest behind Tsunayoshi’s childhood home is ablaze as the young heir to the Vongola’s sins turns to him. His face is languid with victory. “Thank you, Mukuro.” Behind him, the Arcobaleno are huddled together like a flock of confused birds, the curse broken. Reborn is looking at Tsunayoshi like he’s seeing the sun for the very first time.

“Of course, Tsunayoshi.” Mukuro’s smile is perfectly bland. Beside him, Chrome is standing, light on her feet. When he takes his attention off of her, she seems to fade like a trick of the light. He’s so unbearably proud of her. “And what would you have me do next?”

Tsunayoshi doesn’t do him this disservice of pretending he doesn’t know what Mukuro is talking about. “I don’t think I need you for anything at all.”

“And what of the future, Tsunayoshi? When you need me again. What will you do?” Mukuro can’t quite help put push, can’t quite help but prod. He knows what Tsunayoshi is capable of, but he also knows himself. Mukuro is a weapon, and powerful men--a group which Tsunayoshi will undoubtedly join--can never quite resist calling upon things like himself.

(It’s been years, and the memory of fire and smoke and a boot across his throat has not faded.)

Tsunayoshi smiles at him, like he knows something Mukuro doesn’t. “Are you saying you wouldn’t come back, if we were in danger?”

That isn’t what Mukuro was asking at all, but at the same time… “It would have to be something big, Sawada Tsunayoshi.”

“I think we both know I can handle the small stuff,” Tsunayoshi says.

Mukuro hums, and narrows his eyes. At his side, Chrome knocks his leg with the butt of her trident, looking away when he turns to her. For someone so subtle, it’s the equivalent of shouting. “I suppose if you must. You know how to call me.”

The warmth of Tsunayoshi’s eyes is nearly volcanic, but strangely, it doesn’t burn. “Call me Tsuna. I’ll see you in a while, Mukuro.”

Mukuro turns towards the horizon, a forest fire of a boy at his back. He breathes in deep, the scent of woodsmoke hitting the back of his throat like a benediction. “I’ll be seeing you... Tsuna.” 

And with that, Mukuro lets himself dissolve into so much air, vanishing with the dawning sun. In his ear, the Mist Earring rings like wind chimes.


End file.
